


Rotting Hearts

by Draglitch



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life VR Except The AI IS Self Aware
Genre: HLVRAI, Half Life VR Except The AI Is Self Aware - Freeform, I don't know what I'm doing, M/M, This is my first HLVRAI fic please go easy on me, zombie apocalypse AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24695833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draglitch/pseuds/Draglitch
Summary: I listened to the Zombie song about 45 times, came up with an AU, and then realized I have no idea how to write. This is my first fic on this site, and my first fic involving this fandom as a fair warning.
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman, Bubby/Dr. Coomer (Half-Life)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 77





	1. And So It Begins

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, this is my first fic for this fandom and I'm still getting used to writing these characters. Maybe later I'll come back and fix the first few chapters when I get a better feel for them. Also, there's no real set time for when I'll continue writing, so apologies if there's huge gaps between chapters. I'll try to keep myself motivated for this.

Black Mesa had always been a mysterious place.

Gordon sometimes passed it on the way to and from the gym, and was always accosted by guards about where he was going, and why he was near the facility. It was creepy, to say the least. He was glad he had never followed his childhood dreams of working there. Instead, he had become a streamer. Sure, it wasn’t nearly as well paying, but it was fun! There were no real rules or schedules he had to follow, and he was his own boss.

Nevertheless, the place gave off bad vibes. He really should have expected it when the outbreak happened.

He had just been about to go to bed when the sirens went off. It felt like everything around him was screaming all at once, and he immediately clamped his hands over his ears. Disoriented, he tried to understand the thundering voice that accompanied the wailing.

After a few moments, he was still unable to decipher the crackling of the voice over the heavy sirens. He wobbled over to the window to investigate, still holding his ears in pain.

Never before had Gordon been thankful he lived in an apartment. Looking down at the street that was nearly 5 stories below his home was a massacre. Red stained the usually pristine pavement, and the sirens were now accompanied by screaming and… Something that sounded completely inhumane.

Zombies. Actual zombies. Or, something along those lines. Bloodied and gargling creatures screeched and lunged at anyone nearby, groups of them completely surrounding a few stragglers. Many had the same uniform he recognized as belonging to the scientists of Black Mesa. Two and two clicked together, as he quickly came to the conclusion that Black Mesa had something to do with this.

As he stumbled away from the window, his mind spiraled. What kind of cliché was this? With a bit of weak humor, he regretted not watching more zombie movies, as he wasn’t sure what to do. He flinched as loud banging rang through the air.

Gunshots.

He needed a weapon, didn’t he? That seemed like the first logical step here. After a bit of searching around, he found a heavy metal bat from his old highschool baseball team days. It would have to do.

Not having a clue how to handle this, or if he would even be able to swing it properly if he had to use it, he tried to think of what else he needed.

Food, water, shelter- He could last a few days in his apartment, but the zombies would eventually reach this place assuming they could go up the stairs.

What about… Other people? Depending how many zombies were already in the building, maybe they could all set up a blockade here? God, what was he doing, he doesn’t know how to survive a goddamn zombie apocalypse-

He made his way to his front door, before pressing his ear against it. He could hear voices in the outside hall- Which meant living people. Stepping out, he was greeted with some of his neighbors.

He had rarely spoke to them aside from the occasional ‘howdy’ in the halls, but he knew that two of them worked at Black Mesa. The two elderly men were speaking quietly with another much younger man. Any other neighbors had apparently locked themselves in their homes already.

“Hey! Uh-“ He tried to remember at least one of their names. “T- Tommy?” The youngest looked up, and gave a nervous smile.

“Mister Freeman!” Thank god the sirens had finally gone off a little while ago. Tommy stepped to the side a bit, as if opening the circle. “Are you okay? Joshua isn’t here this month, is he?” Gordon shook his head, moving to join the group.

“No, he’s at his mom’s. Thank god he’s far away from all of this.” He looked to the other two in the group. “Sorry, I never caught your names.”

“Dr. Coomer! Nice to formally meet you, Gordon!” He offered a hand, all too friendly and polite for the situation. Gordon took it, a bit concerned at the LACK of concern that the other seemed to have. “And this is my good friend, Bubby!”

“DOCTOR Bubby.” He didn’t offer his hand, which Gordon was almost a bit thankful for.

“Do- Do either of you know what’s happening out there? Its hell, there were creatures, and-“

“Zombies, Gordon!” Gordon cringed at the tone. From the way Coomer spoke you would assume they were talking about a game or movie. It also felt a little… Childish to call them that.

“Yeah, zombies. Did either of you-“ he paused. “Did Black Mesa do this? I know you two work there, you must know something.” They looked between each other, before Coomer shrugged.

“I’m afraid that’s classified, Gordon! We are contractually obligated to keep silent!”

“CLASSIFIED!? IT’S THE FUCKING APOCALYPSE OUT THERE, I’M PRETTY SURE ANY HIGHER UPS YOU HAD ARE DEAD!” All he got was another shrug in return. Already fed up, Gordon covered his face with his hands and let out something between a groan and a whine.

“We- We need to do something, at least. The zombies are going to be up here soon, and if we don’t do something, we’re all going to die.” He turned to Bubby and Tommy, who had been oddly silent for most of the exchange. “You two try to barricade the stairs at the lowest floor you can- Hell, barricade the entrance if you can.”

Bubby scoffed a bit, but surprisingly, turned to do what he was told. Gordon had expected to be yelled at. Feeling a bit more sure of himself, he turned to Coomer.

“You and I are going to figure out who’s still here and try to get supplies together.”

Coomer stared a moment, opened his mouth, closed it, and then grinned. “Hello, Gordon!”

Gordon sighed a bit, turning. “Hello, Coomer.” At least the old man followed behind him to help.

It took a few hours, but Gordon found that there were only about 15 other people in the building. Anyone else had run out when they heard the alarms to their cars, or had already been out on errands. For some reason, Gordon seemed to have been chosen as the ‘leader’ for now without any decision being made. Anything useful had been brought up to the top floors, and people were already setting up rooms if they lived lower.

Any apartments that were empty were completely ransacked. Yeah, he felt a tiny bit bad about doing it, but the people who lived there previously were either miles away or dead. They couldn’t just leave the food, blankets, and medicine there. Not to mention, they had found a little golden retriever puppy in one of the homes, hiding under the couch. Apparently, they were abandoned by their owner. Tommy immediately took responsibility for the dog, and the newly named Sunkist was definitely helping cheer people up.

Bubby and Tommy had done a good job, and the apartment lobby had thankfully been clean of any zombies. They had boarded up the doors and set up a small barricade at the bottom of the steps. As a rule, no one was using the elevator. They had actually boarded it off. God knows what kind of people could come waltzing in on any floor if they left it open. Gordon hoped that people wouldn’t get too violent towards other people during all this, but he wasn’t going to take chances.

It had quieted down outside at least. It wasn’t over clearly, as zombies still milled about, but no one was left alive outside for them to chase. Thank god they apparently couldn’t smell humans like they did in movies, or they would have been swarmed in seconds. They only attacked what they could see.

After everyone had been settled in, they decided to try checking the news. Surprisingly, the internet and everything was still up, and the outbreak was all over the TV.

The virus was spreading quickly through bites, but the government had made no move to halt or fight the zombies. It was more than a little concerning. Gordon was never into conspiracies, but currently his life was in danger and many others were dying. Where were the helicopters, and the waves of troops to kill off the undead? There wasn’t any time to talk about it, action needed to happen now.

After an exhausting several hours of setting up, Gordon knew this was makeshift. There was no way they could live here if the government wasn’t doing anything about the outbreak. They were barely protected, and they needed to find a steady source of food- Or at least start organizing to send people to find food.

A bit guiltily, he realized by ‘organizing’, he also meant ‘sending people to their deaths possibly’. They could live for a little while, but 15 people- 19 including himself, Tommy, Bubby, and Coomer- Along with a dog was a lot of mouths to feed. They would be fine for maybe a week to a month, but if nothing changed by then, they would have to find more food.

And what about other survivors? What if they were already ransacking places for food, hoarding what they could- Hell, what if people were actively searching out other groups to steal supplies? Gordon didn’t have much time to figure out the best way to survive this. There was too much to do, and he was regretting establishing himself as a leader of sorts.

Everyone else was in their claimed rooms, recovering and catching up with what was happening. The fact that they were actually in the middle of a real life zombie apocalypse was still jarring. Gordon was laying on his couch, trying to ignore the slight groans that could be heard from the streets despite them being so far away. He needed to find a more permanent and safer place for these people. A place with weapons, medical supplies, food-

A terrible idea came into his head. Slowly sitting up, he tried to rationalize how much of a BAD idea it was. Black Mesa was the center of the problem, who knows what other kinds of dangerous things were inside! God knows how many zombies are wandering in there! Yet, there would definitely be supplies there. He bets if they could clear a space of zombies, there were plenty of materials for a REAL base. And there would certainly be things to defend themselves with, maybe even super weapons.

Food was iffy, he would have to ask Coomer and Bubby. Or Tommy! He hadn’t even known the guy worked there. It seemed so out of place, the idea that Tommy worked at a place like Black Mesa. It was better than this old apartment building at least. They would be trapped if a fire somehow started, and if zombies DID get in, the only other way out was dropping from a window.

He decided to sleep on the idea and talk to the scientists about it in the morning. Currently it was 3 AM, and Gordon was exhausted. He made his way to his room, and collapsed into bed, passing out almost immediately.

When Gordon woke up, it was only 7 AM. He was woken up by shouting. He quickly jumped out of bed, feeling a little gross after having slept in his clothes, and ran for the hall where the yelling was coming from.

He wasn’t sure what he expected. Maybe zombies, or ransacking survivors.

What he hadn’t expected was Coomer and someone who he didn’t recognize having an intense arm-wrestling match in the hall. Bubby was cheering on Coomer, apparently having bet some snacks on the man, while several other survivors were anxiously watching on. Whoops and cheers filled the building as Coomer slammed the man’s arm down, loudly declaring himself the winner.

It was weird. Gordon was beyond stressed with the situation, and yet everyone else was playing games and laughing still. It was… Kind of nice, relaxing even to see. He just hoped zombies had bad hearing. He made his way through the cramped hallway towards Coomer and Bubby, mumbling apologies as he went.

“Coomer? Bubby?”

“HELLO, Gordon!” Cheerful as always, Coomer stood from the fold out table in the hall.

“Can I talk with you guys?” Bubby immediately scoffed.

“Oh great, here we go.” Gordon only frowned in confusion. “You gonna tell us off for having fun?” The older man deflated when Gordon slowly shook his head, though not apologizing for the assumption.

“No, I- I had an idea. So, you guys worked at Black Mesa, right? Right. And, they should have like, weapons and shit? Supplies?” They nodded, seeming to already understand what Gordon was getting at.

“You want to move to Black Mesa?? The place where this all started? Its gonna be swarmed.” Bubby was frowning, but Coomer quickly stepped in.

“Perhaps not! The zombies most likely moved on and outside, seeing how many of our coworkers were down in the streets for the first waves. Not only that, but perhaps we could find more survivors in Black Mesa who would be willing to shelter or join us!” Bubby nodded along, apparently only up for it now that Coomer had said his part. Gordon was a bit concerned with the survivors part, but agreed anyway.

A few people seemed uneasy with the plan, but Gordon promised they would spend a few more days planning and deciding as a group.

“We just need a safe place. The apartments are too vulnerable, but I don’t want to risk anyone getting hurt when we make the move. After a few more days the zombies might either move on or disperse enough to make this safer for all of us.”

It assured a couple of them at least.

For the time being, Gordon had different people watching the stairs at a time almost as guards. And despite the promise of planning, Gordon couldn’t help but partake in some of the game played in the small space. It helped him feel a bit more alive and real, and less like he was the protagonist in some movie.

He just had to keep living until this was all over, and the government finally came to clean up this mess.


	2. That's Not How This Goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since the last chapter lacked Benrey, have a chapter of NOTHING BUT BENREY. Yeah, there's not much dialog. This is more like... backstory. Exposition chapter. I may have wrote this at 7 AM after not sleeping at all, so I apologize for anything too repetitive or wonky here.

It didn’t take a genius to say that Benrey was NOT human. Anyone who took more than a glance at the creature could testify to that. Benrey himself wasn’t sure what set everyone off so much, he thought he did a pretty good job with his form! Wasn’t his fault humans were lame and boring, he wanted to spruce things up a little!

There wasn’t anything immediate about Benrey that screamed ALIEN to the average person. All you had to do was actually look at him. What was usually passed off as really pale skin was actually a blue-ish grey. His eyes lacked a visible iris, only being one singular color at a time- And frustratingly enough for the scientists of Black Mesa, changed color at random. A grin from Benrey included a row of interlocking sharp teeth, much like a shark. His fingers ended in badly hidden claws.

Benrey had more or less been summoned on accident. Someone set up a PS3 in the breakroom, and suddenly Benrey was there every morning when they came in. It was more than a little jarring to walk in to an otherworldly alien playing Heavenly Sword with strange balls of light decorating the room.

It had been exciting at first, sure. They had tried and failed to make contact with aliens and other universes many times before! However, Benrey wasn’t really… Cooperative.

He barely answered questions, mostly giving half mumbled responses, or saying ‘huh?’. When he DID answer in a mostly complete sentence, he only said childish nonsense. It was… infuriating. One time he apparently was bored with the line of questioning and walked through the wall to go back to playing Heavenly Sword. In hindsight, maybe it was a bad idea to drag a creature they barely knew anything about and try to lock him in a room for answers.

So, as scientists, they began to run little experiments to find the answers for themselves.

The problem is, Benrey viewed these experiments more so as little games. When the scientists first tried to shoot him, he had laughed so loudly it had scared a few out of the room. As the tests went on, Benrey only became more and more amused, spewing taunts and insults.

It was pretty quickly concluded that he was immune to literally all damage. They tried acid, they tried radioactive goop, they tried bullets, explosives, blunt force- Nothing had an affect on the alien.

Someone eventually got fed up with Benrey hogging the breakroom all the time, and tried to remove the PS3. They went missing the next day and the console, along with Benrey, were back in the breakroom in the morning. They decided to leave the console alone after that.

The other thing that was eating away at the scientists was the orbs, or as Benrey called it, ‘Sweet Voice.’ They immediately copyrighted it, of course, much to Benrey’s amusement. They knew it was some sort of language from Benrey’s vague offhand explanation, but he never translated it. The only one Benrey gave any actual answers to was Tommy, of all people.

Tommy was regarded as a child among the other scientists. They often looked down on him and ignored his input. He always had an odd ‘un-scientific’ way of doing things. His latest ‘un-scientific’ method was sitting down on the couch next to Benrey, and asking to play a game with him.

It was very clear that Benrey played favorites.

Tommy eagerly would question the orbs, fascinated by the glowing lights and Benrey would answer casually, as if every scientists in the building hadn’t been pestering him about it since he arrived two weeks before. Tommy was the only reason they knew it was a language of sorts, and was well on his way to learning it. This would be a good thing, except…

“yo, tommy. the sweet voice, it uh- its pretty special. would be kinda cringe if you started to- to go and uh. spread the info. kinda personal, y’know?”

“Of course, mister Benrey! I won’t say a word!”

“epic. pog.”

And that was that. Tommy’s lips were sealed. Camera footage was disrupted whenever they were talking about it, and every time they sent someone to listen the topic suddenly changed.

At this point, the scientists had caught onto Benrey’s game. After nearly 2 months of pestering the alien, they finally decided not to indulge him anymore. He was ignored from that point going forward. They stopped all testing, and left the creature to play his games.

Benrey didn’t like that.

Being an immortal alien creature thing that borderlines on being an actual god was REALLY BORING, as it turns out. Blinking things in and out of existence and messing with things in Xen could only entertain one creature for so long! Xen was much fancier than Earth, and he loved its floating islands and weird teleporters with all his heart (?), but Earth had humans.

Humans were so funny to Benrey. Unpredictable, easy to annoy and quick to resort to violence. The houndeyes and headcrabs were nothing compared to the endless variety of humans. Most were like the scientists that tried to shoot him or blow him up. But then there were humans like Tommy, who smiled and laughed with him.

Strange. All of it was strange, and he loved it! He was still getting the hang of being around humans like Tommy, but he was getting there. Hopefully.

But then all of the fun stopped when all the scientists actively ignored him. Tommy still played games with him, but he was less talkative, left quickly, and disappeared for long amounts of time. At first he thought it was a new test, and played along. He even changed his original gamer get up to match one of the security guards of the place to bother people.

All of his usual shenanigans were failing. It was like he was invisible or something! (He did check with Tommy to make sure he wasn’t, he had accidentally done that a few times). After another week, he had been just about ready to pack up and go back to Xen.

That’s when the outbreak happened.

Tommy wasn’t there again. He had been resigned to playing Minecraft alone again, booting up the PS3, before the screaming started. He was up in a second. Finally, something to soothe his boredom. Any action in this sterile silent place was more than welcome.

He stepped into the hall, ignoring the scientists running past him, walking in the opposite direction. Walking directly towards whatever scared them. Like a proper security guard! … Probably, he still wasn’t sure how they worked exactly.

Benrey watched the surprisingly quick moving feral scientists approach. In every zombie game he played, the zombies were always slow and stupid. Not these zombies. They were animalistic, but more in a pack sense. They surrounded their targets, some of them sprinting, some of them on all fours. He didn’t see active communication, but they were definitely working as a team to take out the living.

Currently, Benrey himself was on the ceiling of the cafeteria. He had gotten a lot of shrieks and horrified expressions last time he walked on the ceiling, but everyone was a bit too busy to notice him right now.

He only grinned lightly, sitting down- up? Sitting up?? Sitting upside-down. He really was only noting that human organs were very different compared to his own. Plenty to examine, the zombies were VERY messy with tearing people apart. That’s when they noticed him.

It didn’t matter to the zombies that he was on the ceiling. It didn’t matter that he was clearly not human. He was ALIVE, in a very basic sense. He wasn’t one of them. Which meant he was on the menu. Past meals were already struggling up to join the growing horde.

Benrey only grinned wider when they began piling on top of each other to reach him. It was ALMOST cute, the effort they put in. It was for nothing, obviously. What were they gonna do? Chew on him until their teeth fell off? Still, the ravenous zombies were slightly off-putting. He didn’t wanna get DROOLED ON. So he finally got up to leave.

He was already halfway through the ceiling when his leg was grabbed, and the horde came crashing down. The creature was more than a little bite dazed. No one had ever just… PULLED him out of a no-clip. That wasn’t how it WORKED.

Zombies didn’t care what worked and what didn’t, though. They already weren’t meant to exist in this universe. They were ALL monsters here. The group descended on the confused alien, and bit down. Most hit his clothes, having no effect. However, one zombie managed to get his neck. One of the few spots other than his face that was really exposed. It shouldn’t’ve mattered. It should have been just like the bullets. Just like the explosions. Thats not how this is supposed to go, not how this WORKS.

Yet a feeling of burning spread from the spot, clashing with the suddenly cold feeling in his chest. A goop of pink and black squares began to drip from the mark as the zombie dug its teeth in harder.

For the first time in his existence, Benrey _screamed._

**Author's Note:**

> No Benrey yet, sadly. I have plans to introduce him in probably the next chapter. I promise, I'll get around to the Gordon/Benrey content!


End file.
